Merrily Cassidy/Cape Cod Times
Maureen Kelley of South Yarmouth walks Tuesday along the parking lot at West Dennis Beach.
Merrily Cassidy/Cape Cod Times
Maureen Kelley of South Yarmouth walks Tuesday along the parking lot at West Dennis Beach.

Blue sky lacking this Cape Cod winter

By GEORGE BRENNAN

gbrennan@capecodonline.com

February 06, 2013 - 2:00 AM

Gray is a four-letter word.

And this winter, we'd swear the Cape has had more than its fair share of gray days.

It hasn't been particularly snowy — even with some flakes gently falling Tuesday — and temperatures have fluctuated between unseasonably warm and bitterly cold.

Nearly 50 days into winter, there have been 25 days of cloudy or partly cloudy skies and just 21 days of full sunshine. That's based on statistics compiled at Barnstable Municipal Airport and analyzed by the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

During 14 of those days, more than five-eighths of the sky was covered in clouds, which is what distinguishes a cloudy day from a partly cloudy day, Samantha Borisoff, a climatologist at the center, wrote in an email.

Last year, there were even fewer sunny days on the Cape in the same time period, just 19, but only 13 of the days were completely cloud-covered, Borisoff said.

Looking at statistics compiled by similar regional climate centers across the country, the Cape numbers don't jump out as anything earth-shattering.

During the month of January, for example, Orlando, Fla., "The Happiest Place on Earth" and the epicenter of the Sunshine State, averages only nine completely clear, sunny days, according to the Southeast Regional Climate Center. Orlando averages 12 days of cloud cover in January and 10 partly cloudy days.

Seattle, Wash., notorious for its cloudy, rainy weather, averages 24 cloudy days in January, according to statistics compiled by the Western Regional Climate Center.

Still, the combination of gray and cold is prompting people like Cape defense attorney Rob Galibois to post photos of beach chairs, forecasts for Miami, Fla., and the Red Sox truck getting ready to depart for Fort Myers on his Facebook wall.

Even with the mediocre team the Red Sox appear to have compiled in the off-season, hope springs eternal for Galibois when "the truck" rolls away from Fenway Park. He even took time out from a court hearing in Boston on Tuesday to go down to Yawkey Way to watch it get loaded for spring training.

"It pushes me through," Galibois said. "I need every ounce of motivation to get through this flippin' winter. This is killing me."

Katie Clancy of Dennis said she was just thinking about how gray it's been this winter.

"I was just talking about this with my mother, and we're two of the happiest people we know," she said. "And I was saying, 'Geez, what's the deal? Can we get some blue sky?'"

Clancy said she tries to put it all in perspective. The days have been getting longer since Dec. 22, and it is February, after all.

"It's winter; get over it," she said. "I felt like last year we went straight to dessert without eating our veggies. I feel like you appreciate spring and summer when you have to suffer a little bit of discomfort."

Still, she'll look forward to the next few weeks when her father begins planting seeds with her four children to get a start on their gardens. From there, spring is just around the corner.

"As New Englanders, it's our job to complain about the weather," Clancy said. "In six months, we'll be complaining about the humidity and the bugs."